“What is it?”
“ J .”
With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed it out and turned an a in its place (not a capital letter this time), and said, “What’s that?”
I told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter r , and asked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formed in the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms of the letters, the word Jarndyce , without once leaving two letters on the wall together.
“What does that spell?” he asked me.
When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with the same rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, the letters forming the words Bleak House. These, in some astonishment, I also read; and he laughed again.
“Hi!” said the old man, laying aside the chalk. “I have a turn for copying from memory, you see, miss, though